Welcome, friends. The purpose of this regular series is to promote enthusiasm and action among Daily Kos members. Romney will very likely out-fundraise President Obama. However, we believe that we can still win if (1) we can remain competitive financially, and (2) we volunteer our time and energy (GOTV, canvassing, phonebanking, LTE, ...).
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Reaching Out to Working Class Voters
Yesterday, as
Tortmaster pointed out, Obama for America released "
I Believe," an effective tv ad highlighting what the President calls "middle-out economics." The ad, which aired during last night's coverage of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, begins with a series of images that most working class Americans will recognize:
1) a man getting up at 6:31am
2) two farmers (wearing caps) opening barn doors as the sun rises
3) a man (wearing a cowboy hat) driving to work as the sun rises
4) a person (wearing a hard hat) lifting a small ice chest out of
the back of a pickup truck in the early morning light
5) a woman in a white shirt clocking in to work
6) a woman in a business suit and a man looking over paperwork at a desk
7) a man (wearing a straw hat) loading bales of hay in the bed of a pickup truck
While these images of workers appear in rapid succession, we hear President Obama in a voiceover emphasizing:
We're a nation of workers and doers and dreamers.
We work hard for what we get.
And all we ask for is that our hard work pays off.
Through these positive words and images that most American viewers will associate with working class habits and experiences, this ad explicitly ties together American working class values and middle class prosperity.
In this morning's Weekly Address, the President urged the House of Representatives to follow the Senate's lead and act to extend the tax cuts that benefit the middle class. As Susan Gardner emphasized, President Obama called out not only Republicans in Congress but also "their nominee for President" for continuing to embrace "top-down economics":
They're wrong. And I know they’re wrong because we already tried it that way for most of the last decade. It didn’t work. We’re still paying for trillions of dollars in tax cuts that benefitted the wealthiest Americans more than anyone else; tax cuts that didn’t lead to the middle class jobs or higher wages we were promised and that helped take us from record surpluses to record deficits.
We can’t afford more top-down economics. What we need are policies that will grow and strengthen the middle class; that will help create jobs, make education and training more affordable, and encourage businesses to start up and stay right here in the United States.[....]
As soon as they pass that bill, I’ll sign it right away. And in the meantime, I’m going to keep fighting for an economy where we’re not just putting folks back to work, but making sure that work pays off – an economy where every American, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from, can have the confidence that if you work hard, you can get ahead.
Here President Obama is again appealing to the values of working class voters even as he contrasts "middle-out economics" with "top-down economics," which he asserts have not worked and have only benefited the wealthiest Americans while costing the rest of us dearly.
This message of hard work shows up across OFA videos released this week. In "I Stand With President Obama," Abram Powell invites deaf people to join People with Disabilities for Obama as he shares his experiences of discrimination as a person who cannot speak or hear and, thus, has not had the same opportunities as other Americans:
Abram persevered through his struggles; learning sign language from his brother, winning the gold medal at the Deaf Olympics; and working at General Motors for 39 years.
Abram saw the need to bring change to the deaf community and the world. He continues his commitment to change by volunteering to ensure President Obama is re-elected in November.
As he shares:
"My goal is for all deaf people to get out and vote and support President Obama. I see a lot of deaf people not voting and they need to vote. When I found out OFA was doing voter registration it was a good way to help give information about President Obama and what he has accomplished. The President is a hard worker, just like I was a hard worker."
And Carole King invites folks to join Rural Americans for Obama as she shares why she will vote for President Obama's re-election, including his valuing of hard work and rural communities:
Reaching Out to His Base
As
Melissa Harris-Perry pointed out when guest-hosting for
TRMS last night, President Obama has been
shoring up his base with policy outreach:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
During the past three months, Harris-Perry notes that President Obama has reached out to the GLBT community and supporters with his May 9th affirmation of support for marriage equality, to Hispanics with his June 15th announcement encouraging passage of the DREAM Act, and to African American parents and educators with his July 25th speech to the National Urban League and his White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans the next day, then concludes:
This is President Obama speaking directly to his base, and not just giving them lip-service, but trying to make their lives better in some measurable way. If elections are about turnout, and turnout is about enthusiasm, President Obama seems to be going right down the line in terms of the group that he needs to be most fired up in November.